A consultation on the strategy ran between 15 September and 15 October 2014.

The strategy has since been refreshed to incorporate the requirements of Future in Mind (FIM).

The implementation of the strategy will be overseen by the Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health Partnership Board; more information about the board is available here.

In 2015, the Government announced it was making additional funding available to support local commissioners in delivering transformational change.

Funding has been made available to help deliver change, looking at what is currently in place and what can be achieved if it was done differently using new and existing funding. The local transformation plan was built on engagement undertaken previously and specifically during Autumn 2015 based on the recommendations from FIM. It involved a wide range of professionals from across education, health and social care and young people themselves, who were supported by Young People Cornwall in ensuring their voice was heard.

You can access the transformation plan, including the strategy and supporting engagement documents, here.

A set of local aspirations for delivering this vision are:

Emotional wellbeing and mental health services for children and families will shift towards building resilience, prevention, early intervention, and mental health promotion.

Early help for mental health for parents, infants, children, young people and their families will be well co-ordinated and effective across all agencies. They will ensure ease and speed of access for children, young people and their families, and working across Cornwall and Isles of Scilly in a consistent way.

All interventions will be based upon the best available evidence, and will be delivered in collaboration with children and families, using the approach of ‘shared decision making (SDM)’. All interventions will support the delivery of agreed outcomes.

All staff working with infants, children and young people will be trained in child development, emotional wellbeing and mental health in children and young people.

Children, young people and their families will access emotional wellbeing and mental health services at times and in places that reflect their preferences.

Audit and evaluation of service delivery will be transparent and will inform all service developments.

Working together

It is clear that delivering the change required by FIM will take significant effort by all key stakeholders in developing detailed plans for up-skilling the local workforce, developing new models of care and shifting the focus to a whole-system model of prevention and early intervention that ensures children and young people don’t reach the point of crisis before getting help. It is also important that ‘help’ comes at the right time, in the right place and is the right kind of help to meet the need.

To develop the detailed plans, the transformation programme has set up an initial six work-streams covering:

Early help for mental health

Crisis pathways

Workforce development and training

Eating disorders

Perinatal and infant mental health

Data and outcomes

The transformation programme also links into the Kernow Headstart, which is developing the Digital Offer – more information on Kernow Headstart can be found here.

This is an iterative programme and the plans are starting to take shape and will develop as things are tested out and children, young people and their families and carers inform the progress. Each work-stream is responsible for engaging the expert input needed to ensure plans are robust and sustainable. Hear our Voice has been commissioned to work on the transformation programme to ensure the voice of children and young people is heard and that there are opportunities to co-design the new models based on their real-life experiences. Parents and carer council will also be working on the transformation so that those children with additional needs can have an input into the developments to meet their needs. Further work is needed on ensuring that parents are engaged across the programme.

If you are a young person who would like to be involved, please contact Young People Cornwall by contacting the main office on 01872 222447 or by emailing Kate Smith at kates@ypc.org.uk.

If you are a parent, carer or relative of a child or young person accessing mental health support and would like to get involved, please contact Emma Corlett, Project Manager, NHS Kernow Maternity and Children’s Programme by email at emma.corlett@nhs.net. Please provide your contact details, your views on current services and a summary of work-streams or aspects of work you would be interested in supporting. We will collect all feedback and report it to the relevant work-streams and we will contact you to let you know of opportunities to co-design services as they arise.

Videos

The links below are films which give more information on CAMHS. To watch these videos, you will need to enter a password, which is ypc.